FLUID PAINTING Presented by Jacqueline Burke Volpe The Creativity Curator jbvdesignstudio Copyright Jacqueline Burke Volpe
Flip Cup Pour Workshop. Equipment, ingredients, brands, tips and tricks.
WORKSPACE EQUIPMENT PAINT MEDIUM Control click on titles to follow a link to subject slide
ADDITIVES TO CREATE CELLS REVIEW DRYING & FINISHES Control click on titles to follow a link to subject slide
MATERIALS & EQUIPMENT LIST Tray Tray liner Spatula or wood stick for stirring paint and moving paint around Straw to blow paint around on canvas Containers to mix paint (one for each color) and a cup to layer the paint to pour Supports to raise canvas off tray, such as small bowls, cups, blocks. Canvas Acrylic Paint Paint Medium Dimethicone or Silicone (optional) Color wheel (optional) Gloves Apron Finish / Sealer
YOUR WORKSPACE Set up two work areas: One to mix paint. One to pour. Set up both spaces on a flat, level surface near to each other. Such as a counter or table that your can cover to protect from paint spills. Create a mellow and fun atmosphere with music and room scents (with an infuser or light a candle away from your area).
EQUIPMENT Substrate a non-porous surface that will bind with acrylic paint, such as pre-primed / gessoed canvas board, a canvas stretched on a frame, or primed / gesso-ed wood. For this guide we will discuss painting on a canvas board, which is what we poured on in the workshop. To catch drips, use a tray or box that is larger than your canvas. It can be a cardboard box or baking / roasting pan (the Job Lot and Dollar Stores have aluminum ones). Or re-use the tray from the workshop. Something to support the canvas. That fits in the tray. Such as cups, bowls, or a wire (cookie) rack. continued
EQUIPMENT CONTINUED Tray liner. What you use will depend on whether you want to recycle the paint that runs off of your canvas (and the tray itself). Dried paint from a pour that peels off the liner is called a skin (see photo). To produce skins pour onto your canvas over a liner such as a Sil-Pat (silicone baking mat), parchment paper, plastic wrap, glass or plexi-glass. Cups or squeeze bottles to mix paint. I like to recycle glass jars with lids. (This is also a way to recycle large empty pill bottles.) Stirrer(s) to mix the paint. Spatula, straw, and / or string to move paint around on the canvas. Plastic gloves and apron. http://zartart.com.au Peeling off a skin.
PAINT A Starter Kit Liquitex BASICS brand. Liquitex sells a starter kit of six 4 ounce (118 ml) tubes in: Cadmium Yellow, Mars Black, Phthalo Green, Ultramarine Blue, Naphthol Crimson, Titanium White. Medium priced. This kit and other similar kits are ideal for learning color theory and color mixing. They also sell the same kit of colors in.75 ounce sized tubes. Characteristics: A heavy body acrylic. Dries to a satin finish. Intermixable with other Liquitex acrylic colors and acrylic mediums. Stencil/Deco/Craft paint. Folk Art, Apple Barrel, and Martha Stewart, are a few brands that fit this category of paint. These come in bottles and most aren t as thick (heavy bodied) as paint in tubes so they may need less or no floetrol. Ocean State Job Artist s Acrylic Phoenix brand. Not as heavy bodied as the Liquitex brand. Nice array of colors, easy to mix. Inexpensive. For experimenting or just for fun, pour latex house paint. This is a good way to use up any leftover paint you may have or to use the small sample jars sold by the major house paint manufacturers. These paints will need little or no floetrol. Golden is another brand that sells a heavy body acrylic and a fluid acrylic. Golden is a great choice, but the brand is the generally the most expensive of the ones mentioned above.
CHOOSING YOUR COLORS Refer to a color wheel if you would like to mix colors and predict an outcome, but I recommend using the paint colors in the Liquitex BASICS kit right out of the tube - without mixing them together to make another color. This will help you begin to develop a knowledge of color theory. Colors will blend when they are poured onto the canvas so think about how colors will look beside each other and on top of each other and whether a color is transparent or opaque (more info follows). Color Wheel Color Wheel
CHOOSING YOUR COLORS Create a swatch to see what the colors will look like together: Pour or drip a strip or circle of color on a piece of heavy white paper or board, such as Bristol board, card stock, or a small canvas board. Then pour other colors across it. To apply the paint to the swatch card, I don t use a brush since a brush stroke of color over another color will blend the colors. Instead I use a dropper or drip the paint off a wooden stirring stick. You can then see what the colors look like side by side, blended, and their opacity / transparency. In addition, swatches, like this, made on a clear material, such as wax paper, cellophane, or glass can be held up to a light to further test the colors opacity / transparency. Add the names of the colors onto the card. Keep for future reference and inspiration. Phthalo Green, Ultramarine Blue, Naphthol Crimson jacksonarts.com Color Test Swatch
TRANSPARENT VERSUS OPAQUE When choosing paint colors, it can be helpful to note if a color is opaque or transparent to predict how it will look with other colors. Paint containers, such as Liquitex and Golden, are marked with opacity / transparency properties. Liquitex brand paints have a symbol on the tube: A black box denotes the paint is opaque. A half-black, half-colored box denotes the paint is transparent. Golden brand uses an 8 point scale to describe the paint property. On the tube, a number from 1 (most opaque) to 8 (most transparent) is either listed or there will be a slider / line o t with a dot on it that indicates the relative opacity/transparency of the color.
MEDIUMS Both Liquitex and Golden sell mediums to add to the paint to make it flow like heavy cream. But you can also add all purpose glue as a binder or floetrol. The mediums do not alter the paint color / pigment and dry clear. I suggest using floetrol and Liquidex paint at a ratio of 1:3 one part paint to 3 parts medium. In general, the ratio of paint to medium used depends on the thickness of the paint. Best advice is to gradually add the floetrol to the paint. For example: measure out one ounce of paint and gradually add up to 3 ounces of floetrol to it. The final result should be the viscosity of crepe batter or thick heavy cream. Water can be used as a thinner, but I find that it sometimes separates on the canvas and creates a halo. House paint can be used straight out of the can without the addition of floetrol or other medium or thinner since the fluidity is usually good. Continued
Floetrol is used by exterior and interior house painters. It is a water based paint conditioner that helps to improve paint flow and eliminates brush / roller strokes. MEDIUMS It can be purchased at hardware / diy stores in quart and gallon sizes. One brand is Flood. Golden and Liquitex mediums are raw polymers that are used to create certain effects. They can be purchased at craft stores and on-line. An all purpose glue that binds to your substrate (canvas or wood). Check the label to make sure it dries clear and is not just for gluing paper together i.e. it is suitable for fabric or wood. Sherry Ball Schoenfeldt / Studio Pashnada (c) All rights reserved.
ADDITIVES TO CREATE CELLS It is not necessary to use an additive. Only include it if you wish the paint to form cells. If you wish to obtain cells, use a hair oil, such as coconut or argon oil that has dimethicone or dimethiconol as an ingredient. Dimethicone (aka polydimethylsiloxane or PDMS) is a siliconebased polymer and it is in many personal care products. Treadmill oil or an mechanic s silicone, or Rainex (a auto windshield cleaner/rain repelllent) can also be used to create cells in your painting. You only need to add a few drops to each color after it is added to your cup. You do not need to mix it with the paint. If you wish to mix it with the paint, I suggest adding and mixing it to your paint before layering your paint into a pouring cup. It is not necessary to add these oils to white (titanium white). White is a very opaque and dense paint. The oils do not usually flow in it and therefore cells may not form when poured (they may form in white when using other fluid painting techniques, such as a swipe).
ADDITIVES This is the oil used in workshop. To create cells with a hair care product look for an ingredient called Dimethiconol or Dimethicone
HOW MUCH PAINT DO I NEED An 8 ounce mix of paint and floetrol will cover the surface and sides of an 9x12 canvas stretched over a 1-1/2 inch frame. Measure the surface and edges of your substrate (i.e. your canvas or wood pouring surface)to determine how much paint and floetrol you will need in your cup. If there is too much it will most likely run off the sides or if not take forever to dry. On the other hand, if there is not enough paint, when you tilt your surface to cover it the outline of the paint on the surface (the design) will have jagged outlines although sometimes this is a sought after effect. This can also happen if you tilt to fast or hard.
WHAT IS A DIRTY POUR? A Dirty Pour is simply layering more than one paint color in the same container before adding it a canvas or other substrate. You can layer two or more colors into your cup or container, and then flip the cup onto your canvas so when the cup is lifted you will have a single puddle. The paints mix as they leave the cup blending the colors and creating unexpected results. You can then tilt the canvas back and forth to move the paint. As you tilt the canvas the paint will cover the canvas and the sides and can create a composition. Gravity and your intuition creates the painting for you!
BEFORE THE POUR Don t forget to meditate before you pour that is -- after you have set up your workspace and mixed your paint. Take a few moments to relax before you add paint to your pouring cup and then again before you flip the cup so you are relaxed as the paint flows. Remember it is not about the end result, but about the process and letting go during the flow and letting go about how we might anticipate it should look as we are in the process and later as it dries and changes.
THE POUR 1. Using the Paint Amounts Needed Per Canvas chart, figure out how much of your paint and floetrol recipe mix is needed to cover the top and sides of the canvas. 2. Mix your paint colors with floetrol. Mix each paint color with the floetrol in a separate cup or container. I like to use glass containers with a lid so I can mix larger batches of paint and floetrol and also so I rinse the container out when empty and reuse it. 3. Stir the floetrol and paint mixture. You can also shake it. With both methods let the paint sit for about 10 minutes before using it to allow any air bubbles that may have formed to settle. 4. Once your paints are mixed and you know how much you will need for the canvas add paint in layers to a cup. One color at a time. If you would like cells in your composition, in between each layer add just a drop or two of the hair care oil. If you are using white paint, you do not need to add oil to it white is usually added first to the cup since it will sink. 5. There is a golden rule to layer the colors by their opacity/transparency - OTOTOT. This is discretionary, but as discussed previously when choosing colors it is good to keep in mind how the colors will look side by side and if they overlap, etc.. And let that determine your layers -- what order you use to fill the cup. 6. Do not stir the layers. 7. The total amount in the cup will be equal to the amount needed to cover your canvas. continued
8. Keep the canvased raised (on cups, bowls, or a wire rack) so you can get your hands under it to pick it up and so the paint can flow off the canvas and so the canvas doesn t stick on the bottom to the tray. 9. Flip the cup onto a plastic card or thick glossy piece of cardboard (old greeting cards or postcards work well. Check your mail for plastic advertisement postcards.) 10. Then lower the card with the cup on top of it onto the center of your canvas. 11. Slide the card out from under the cup. You can move the cup around on the canvas without lifting it. 12. Once it seems all of the paint in the cup had run down onto the canvas, then lift the cup. You will have a pretty puddle of paint. 13. Tilt the canvas so the paint flows and covers it. 14. If you have added oil, cells will form. A mini-torch (like a kitchen torch) or a heat gun can be used to form more cells. I find cells form without using the torch or gun though, but if do use one don t let it rest in one place keep moving it around the paint surface and you only need to use it for a few seconds. 15. Use your hand or a spatula to wipe under the canvas (without turning it over) to smooth out any drips on the underside of the canvas. 16. Enjoy the flow! THE POUR CONTINUED
DRYING AND AFTER THE POUR It will take about a week for your work to dry to the touch and then a month for it to cure (completely dry). While it is drying, place it in an area where it is not exposed to dust or tent a lid over it. As your work dries it will change, since the paint may still move and cells will get larger and smaller. If you would like to try the technique again and do not want to use a new canvas then when your pour is dry you can pour over the pour also some artists if they don t like the pour will immediately scrape it off while it is wet. I think it is a good idea to let it dry, rather than waste paint by scraping it off, you might end up liking it after all or can salvage it. Once it is dry to the touch, you can embellish it. Let the embellishment dry and the entire painting cure. For example: you can draw on it with pastels or a non-waterproof maker (so you can wipe lines away as you experiment) and then go back and paint with acrylic over the drawing lines to define and seal them. Or you can add metallic paints or foil to the pour. There are many ways to embellish. Contact me if you d like to brainstorm (embellishments will be covered in future workshop). You can also add a sealer/finisher to your work to preserve it. continued
DRYING AND AFTER THE POUR SEALERS / FINISHES Minwax Polyacrylic finish clear gloss to pour. DecoArt Americana DAS12 sealer / finisher to spray. Both are glossy, but also are available in matte. They both dry clear. Shown are two of many similar protects that are compatible with acrylic paints that are available.
DRYING AND AFTER THE POUR CONTINUED It will dry with a matte finish. If you would like it to be glossy again or would like to add a protective finish then you can put a layer of a product that is compatible with acrylic paint, such as varnish or poly-acrylic. Resin can also be used as a final layer. Do not add this finish until your work and any embellishments are completely cured/dry. Before adding a finish, wipe down your work with a paper towel soaked in water and detergent to remove dust and any oil additive such as silicone/dimethcone which will prevent the finish from binding with the acrylic. If you used an oil additive to make cells, you can also sprinkle it with bath powder or cornstarch to wick up the silicone / dimethicone and then wash it off with a paper towel soaked with detergent and water. The final finish can be applied as a spray or poured. Pour and then spread the finish over the surface and sides by tilting the piece and with a gloved hand spread it around. It will self-level and may fill in any divots. If adding a finish by spray, apply a coat and let it dry before adding another. 1-3 light coats are recommended. Spray in a well ventilated area, wear a mask if you have sensitivity. Spraying is recommended if your work has a texture to retain. Always keep you work raised up off the surface as it is drying so any paint on the back does not stick to your tray liner.
MORE INFO Please feel free to contact me with questions and sign up for my mailing list to receive my blog and info about my upcoming workshops and events. Coming up next are more creativity workshops (such as acrylic pour and an altered books / collage using multi-media techniques) and a Mindfulness Festival. I can be contacted on my websites: https://www.thecreativitycurator.com/ https://www.jbvdesignstudio.com/ Or by email at Jacqueline@thecreativitycurator.com The Creativity Curator jbvdesignstudio Jacqueline Burke Volpe